Gash’s Lovejoy Series as a Re-evaluation of Noir, with Pearlhanger as a Case in Point

by Harry J. Lerner, Ph.D.

Any self-respecting literary genre must subject itself to some occasional scrutiny. This habit of self-reflection can go a long way to ensuring that the genre in question continues to grow and evolve. The Lovejoy novels written by Jonathan Gash offer a kind of re-evaluation of the noir aesthetic.

These stories present something of a paradox for devotees of noir fiction. Some might argue that these books do not really fit into this literary genre at all given the passion with which Lovejoy speaks of antiques and the sense of hope he often derives from them. Despite these decidedly non-noirish tendencies, Lovejoy still embodies many of the personality traits typically associated with a more conventional noir protagonist.

Much like the wave-particle duality of light, where light exhibits both wave-like and particle-like characteristics, Gash’s Lovejoy novels exhibit a kind of duality in that they have both noir and non-noir-like qualities. This duality can actually be seen on a number of different levels including Lovejoy’s descriptions of the antiques world versus the world at large, his opinions regarding the nature of antiques dealers, and in Lovejoy himself.

Using Pearlhanger* as a case in point, Lovejoy’s personal cosmology or world view can be characterized, first and foremost, by a very sharp distinction he draws between antiques and the rest of the world. This is made clear, for example, when he muses:

"Back to normality for that mighty antiques firm called Lovejoy Antiques Inc. The entire business is only me, but it’s real honest- to-God living and that’s more than you can say for any other form of existence. I trotted on to the auction, blissfully happy." (Pearlhanger, p. 9)

Like much of noir fiction Gash’s work features a protagonist who operates according to his own personal code of morality. However, in Lovejoy he has created someone who, while having a rather dismal view of the modern world and most of those in it, still touts the unequivocal virtues of all things antique. Lovejoy is a man whose personal code is not only absolute, but also a fairly unusual combination of optimism and cynicism.

Pearlhanger, like all of the Lovejoy books, is written in the first person and in a kind of pseudo-conspiratorial tone. Contributing to this sense of illicit camaraderie are the efforts Lovejoy makes to inform and educate the reader in the ways of all antiques dealers. For Lovejoy human expression, both positive and negative, takes on its truest form when expressed through antiques. He often equates antiques with human emotions like love and lust. He is so committed to the world of antiques that he often engages the reader with lengthy asides about it and the dealers that inhabit it. While these tangents are a form of self indulgence for Lovejoy, and therefore demonstrate his unwavering devotion (a decidedly non-noirish trait), he also uses them as cautionary tales and even as justification for actions he intends to take that might otherwise seem decidedly amoral (a more typically noir pattern of behavior).

In Pearlhanger, Lovejoy offers some insight into the mindset of a dealer through one of these tangents. While justifying his rationale for opting for a more subtle approach to setting up an antiques scam (as retribution against those responsible for the death of an innocent acquaintance of his by the name of ‘Owd Maggie’), he describes how a typical dealer’s mind usually works:

"A year ago somebody put word around of a genuine variant of the Canning Siren for sale…You can guess what a splash the story of a Canning Siren variant created among us dealers…Common sense sadly prevailed and we all sobbed into our ale, because huge high quality baroque pearls just simply aren’t found in these days of standardized conformity…Too good to be true, in other words." (Pearlhanger, p. 83-84)

This passage highlights an eternal, if self-serving, hopefulness commonly shared by antiques dealers and the pragmatism they have to maintain in order to survive in their line of work. This willingness to hope for some good fortune tempered with a cynicism gained through experience is typical of the paradoxical nature of the dealers in Lovejoy’s world and of Lovejoy himself as a noir, or at least noirish, protagonist.

One can find several aspects of Pearlhanger that readily conform to the ideals of a traditional ‘whodunit’, e.g. an untimely death, a series of clues that Lovejoy has to uncover and decipher, and an elaborate plan to unmask the killer or killers. However, in Lovejoy himself, one can recognize some very noir qualities that significantly add to the nature of the story as a whole. As with all of the novels in this series, at the beginning of Pearlhanger the reader once again finds Lovejoy in his perpetual state of near financial destitution. This status quo is both expected and lamented by Lovejoy. He is what is known as a divie, a person able to recognize a genuine antique purely by sensing that it is genuine. However, Lovejoy is never able to profit from his gift because, from his point of view, the world of antiques that he loves so dearly always seems to be in some kind of cosmic collusion preventing him from getting ahead. This may seem a rather paranoid outlook on life but, despite Lovejoy’s unwavering passion for all things antique, his day-to-day experiences have taught him that trust in the antiques game is very much a relative thing.

For example, he sees his own actions, as unsavory as they may seem from the outside, as merely a byproduct of the world in which he has to make his livelihood. Earl F. Bargainnier, in his 1987 article in The Armchair Detective (Vol. 20, No. 2, p. 129), discusses Lovejoy’s frequent claims that his personal motivations are as pure as the driven snow and that any outward semblance of malfeasance on his part is entirely the result of external pressures placed on him by his circumstances. For example, in Pearlhanger, Lovejoy bemoans how women tend to complicate many situations. He observes:

"…I knew that women were born pests…I’m reasonable and tolerant, and they’re not. Simple as that. This incompatibility’s bound to cause problems, and invariably I’m the one who comes off worst, because fair-minded people always do." (Pearlhanger, p. 142)

This personal philosophy of self-absolution underpins Lovejoy’s code of moral conduct, even if outward appearances suggest a lack of moral responsibility on his part. In his mind, the circumstances in which he all too often finds himself, invariably dictate his responses.

This is further underscored later in Pearlhanger when Lovejoy’s apprentice, Lydia, destroys the fake antique he created for his scam. Lydia, being a very prim and proper lady, represents a kind of moral absolute that contrasts with Lovejoy’s more pragmatic view of the modern world. Emphasizing this moral divide he confesses to the reader that his scam does indeed have its rather shady aspects but proceeds to justify why, at the time, he really had no choice but to go ahead with it anyway:

"…I admit it sounded pretty gothic and immoral. But what’s to be done when morality is helpless, and evil rides the land? I honestly do wish that sometimes women would make allowance for purity of conviction in a man, but they never do. It’s a weakness that makes me question their basic honesty." (Pearlhanger, p. 199)

His acknowledgement of both his appearance of impropriety, and his justification for it, is further evidence that Lovejoy possesses a complex mixture of both noir-like and non-noir-like traits that actually makes its own kind of sense in the context of his personal world view.

Lovejoy’s sense of justice, for example, is predicated on the simple idea that all things and all people should be treated with a basic respect, but only in so far as they reciprocate in one way or another. In the case of antiques, he believes you must respect them for their beauty, value and the love imbued in them by their makers. They will reciprocate by being there for you to enjoy and occasionally serve as a source of income. Lovejoy even tries to make amends when forced to mistreat an antique. At an auction near the start of Pearlhanger he purposely dismisses a genuine antique as a modern copy in order to discourage other dealers from bidding on it:

"I picked up the old dish Margaret had been inspecting and grumbled audibly, ‘You should have bought that oil sketch instead of tarting around this gunge.’ Saying those words broke my heart and mentally I whispered an apology to the dish…" (Pearlhanger, p. 11)

Lovejoy applies the same logic to his dealings with people. So long as those he deals with do not commit any egregious acts, meaning those outside of what are considered the norm for antique dealers (i.e. a little lying or cheating to pay the bills), he will treat them equally well in turn. However, when he sees a wrong being done, either to an innocent bystander or to himself, something must be done to make things right.

In the case of the retribution he seeks for the death of ‘Owd Maggie’, the failure of his original plan forces him to change tacks, even at his own risk. He sets things in motion such that he ensures that another dealer, ‘Big’ John Sheehan, falls prey to those responsible for the death of Lovejoy’s friend and is then made aware of it. In doing so Lovejoy forces the other dealer to exact punishment in his stead.

"The first thing Sheehan would do would be to get some expert to check the pendant’s authenticity. Any jeweler worth his pay would find the sign scratched on it…Then heads would roll, including maybe mine. But as long as they included Deamer’s and Donna’s and Chatto’s I wouldn’t mind. Much." (Pearlhanger, p. 210)

As Lovejoy sees it, it is only when someone else first perpetrates an immoral act that he is forced to respond in kind. In other words, despite the often unsavory actions he ends up taking, it is plainly evident to Lovejoy, and he hopes the reader, that he is in fact always a victim and never really the instigator of such events.

This duality of nature thus pervades Pearlhanger on several levels. Inevitably, despite his gift as a divie and his love for antiques he only ever manages to, at best, break even. However, Lovejoy’s dual nature as a noir protagonist prevents this state of affairs from ever dulling or diminishing his passion for antiques even with everything that comes with living in that world. It is this unusual mix of optimism and pragmatism that helps Lovejoy’s dealings with the never quite predictable world of antiques stand out in the realm of noir fiction. A perennial glimmer of hope coupled with all too realistic expectations allows both Lovejoy as protagonist and us as readers to contemplate both sides of the coin that is life without being entirely disillusioned by either.

This fairly delicate balance is not always seen in noir literature, and the fact that Gash has been able to achieve and maintain it is a strong indication that it is possible to expand upon what noir is and can do as a literary form without losing what it is that makes a story noir in the first place. While not a re-invention of the noir genre, Gash’s Lovejoy series is a kind of reconsideration of noir and its literary boundaries. It pays homage to the rich history and tradition of noir while making its own unique contribution. Ultimately noir is an exploration of us, our strengths and our weaknesses. As a form of storytelling, it is therefore only as unlimited as our collective experience and imagination. Since this makes for truly fertile ground for self-reflection, noir cannot help but continue to grow and evolve.

* Works Cited:
Pearlhanger, 1986, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.
"Lovejoy: Antiques with a Vengeance", The Armchair Detective, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 127-134.

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Copyright © Harry J Lerner, 2008

HARRY J. LERNER, Ph.D, was born and raised in London, Ontario, Canada. He is an archaeologist who studies how prehistoric stone tools were made and used about 3,000 years ago in what is now the American Southwest. He completed his doctorate in this field in the fall of 2006 at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. His dissertation was recently published by Archaeopress, a British publisher of archaeological monographs. His interests, however, go far beyond the realm of all things archaeological. He is also something of an amateur automotive historian. Over the past year and a half he has published three articles in a bi-monthly publication called “Old Autos”. His interest in noir and hardboiled literature goes back to high school English when he had to pick an author as a subject for an essay. His fateful choice those many years ago was none other than Dashiell Hammett! Ever since he has been fascinated by these genres and all they have to offer.